Whispers
by Traxits
Summary: Her voice wasn't the loudest of those Ifalna heard, but there was something distinctive in the sobbing, something that ripped through her skin and crawled down her spine, a wash of cold that she wasn't sure she'd ever heard in the voice of the dying.


**Title** : Whispers  
 **Author** : Traxits  
 **Fandom** : Final Fantasy VII  
 **Rating** : General audiences  
 **Content Notes** : None.  
 **Word Count** : 700 words.  
 **Summary** : Her voice wasn't the loudest of those Ifalna heard, but there was something distinctive in the sobbing, something that ripped through her skin and crawled down her spine, a wash of cold that she wasn't sure she'd ever heard in the voice of the dying.  
 **Author's Note(s)** : Original prompt from Fic_Promptly on Dreamwidth: Final Fantasy VII, Lucrecia/Ifalna, If only I had known you when you lived...

 **[[ … One-Shot … ]]**

Her voice wasn't the loudest of those Ifalna heard, but there was something distinctive in the sobbing, something that ripped through her skin and crawled down her spine, a wash of cold that she wasn't sure she'd ever heard in the voice of the dying.

The return to the Lifestream was an easy process, an instinctive one, and while some fought it, Ifalna had never felt anyone fight it as viscerally as this one did. Her eyes closed, and she reached out instinctively, trying to find the woman, trying to ease her passage, and the moment she connected to the Planet and the Lifestream, her entire body heaved. She could taste the heavy iron of blood in her mouth, could feel the desperate panic, and more than that, there was an immediate and gut-wrenching taste of something wrong about the whole thing.

It took her a few minutes— Gast's hand was on her back, his low voice sharp with concern, but she ignored him— before she could get a grip on that essence, and even then, there was a sharp and immediate voice in her head, too clear to be the dead.

They never spoke with such individuality.

Ifalna shaped the words with her own mouth, her eyes easing open to look at nothing as she whispered back softly, "Please, you must let go. Don't make this—"

Not yet.

Not yet. There's too much, too much unfinished, too much left—

Ifalna's body snapped then, and she blinked blearily at the floor, confused at the sharp tang in the back of her mouth, the vomit on the floor under her. Then she swallowed, gagged, and threw up again before she leaned back against Gast's hand.

She could still feel her, still sense her lurking around the edges. Her particular brand of worry and desperation was too sharp and clear for Ifalna to forget.

Lucrecia. That was her name, and while she was supposed to fade into the Planet, something was entirely too wrong with her body to let her do it. Something had changed the very core of her essence, and she didn't want to return to the Planet and to be perfectly frank, the Planet didn't want her to return. Ifalna could understand. That sense of wrong was too thorough, too deep to get out.

Who knew what such a thing would do to the Planet?

What Ifalna hadn't been expecting was the way Lucrecia wove herself into the other voices that Ifalna often heard. There were the cries from the Planet, of course, and the whispers of the Cetra before her, and just as distinctive, there was Lucrecia, often muttering to herself about materia and Chaos and a man. Valentine. Her son.

As Ifalna's own body swelled with child, she found it easier to understand the desperation that had originally colored Lucrecia's words at the mention of her son. Then a night of blood and everything Ifalna had built for herself was gone, ripped away as surely as Lucrecia's own life had been.

Ifalna would have known Hojo without Lucrecia's voice in the back of her head, but she would have lacked the depths of that rage. Possibly, she would have lacked the strength to fight him as long as she did.

In the end, it was Lucrecia's codes that Ifalna punched in as she and Aeris escaped, and it was Lucrecia's bus code that they used to get on the train. It had taken so long to make Lucrecia focus enough to get them from her— she was finally beginning to wear down, and while everything about her essence still screamed wrong, she herself was beginning to long for the Planet in a way she didn't understand.

Ifalna kept back the tears at the realization, and when the bullets ripped through her, left her too weak to see Aeris to safety, she knew she would be returning soon. She reached for Lucrecia at the first chance though, and while they never whispered nonsense to one another, never gave breath to the wishes and thoughts she knew they both had, it was Lucrecia who held her. For the first time, she wished—

And then there was nothing at all.


End file.
